Sometimes I have to brag about my Bella.

If you don't ride horses you may not completely understand why I'm so proud of my girl, but I'm sure you will appreciate the sentiment.  Bella has come so far with me.  I bought her over 7 years ago and the road has been quite a long one.  She has never been the easiest horse but I have come to love her and all her quirkiness.

Today I got on and started warming her up for my lesson.  Bella sometimes think she is a charging war horse and that is how she came out today.  Full of energy and activity just not channeling it properly yet.  That's where I come in, I use to try to stifle that side of her thinking she was taking over the ride or just being naughty but over time I learned that Bella needs to have her little fun and say too.  So I subtle ask her to start using her energy in a more constructive way and the end result can be quite lovely.

Judy had us working on a few things today.  Haunches in, turn on the haunches and flying changes.  Of course there were more elements in the ride but that's what our focus was today.  At the very end we asked for more collection maybe the start of some half steps.  Not sure if we are quite getting it right yet but I feel like we are headed in the right direction.  So I'm bragging on my girl just a little today because she makes me a very proud owner and rider and sometimes I feel like I could do anything and everything with her and that's a great feeling.

Dog Sitting Joys

So this week we've had my brother's dog Ana with us.  He and his family are on a nice spring vacation.  This is our first time watching Ana and I just wanted to share what fun it's been to have her join us for the week.

Zoskia, my sweet needy doberman had a big sister when we first got her.  Kia was very attached to both myself and our adult dog Callie.  So, when Callie passed (the dog of my heart who will be missed everyday) Kia really attached herself to me.  While this can be very flattering it also is very unhealthy for Kia.

So enter into the picture sweet Ana. She is around 2 years old and needs a lot of activity.  When I got home the first day from work after she had been dropped off she was crazy!!  Crying and running around the house which in turn made Kia insane.  After I addressed Kia and calmed her down I then addressed Ana's behavior.  It took a few minutes to come down from the heights of crazy energy but she did and I was able to calmly pet her while she sat beside me.  My husband had run a few errands and got home soon after.  We then took the pups out for a walk.  Whew that was tough. Ana was super excited and just wanted to pull Dane everywhere.  We got the dogs to the area that is mostly enclosed and let them off leash.  They exploded with energy.  And every since that time Ana has been great.

I've taken her down to the barn and she has had playtime with the pups there.  She was introduced to the horses. (still figuring that one out, she thinks its ok to blast through the barn).  Once Ana gets a little exercise she is just about a perfect dog.  Now enter back into the picture my needy Kia.  Not so needy this week.  She has a buddy and is perfectly happy to play with her and hang with her.

Now don't forget this has to come full circle with my blog which is about health and fitness.  This is about fitness and exercise.  With the proper exercise the dogs are balanced and happy and healthy.  And if YOU get the proper exercise you can also be all of those things!

Wow! I'm tired!

It's the kind of day that keeps giving and going.  Woke up headed to the Dermatologist for a quick fix.  I get IPL for acne about every 4 weeks, between these and my at home skin care regimen, and my glycolic peels at work I'm able to keep my acne under control (but that's a post for another day).  Then I ran to the post office to send off a great prize for our last Challenge Winner.  I will share about that in a post tomorrow.  Needless to say it is always exciting to send prizes off!  Swung back to the house to pick up Zoskia to go to the barn with me.  Had a lovely ride on Miss Bella, who was a little tired today and needed some extra motivation to keep a nice jump in the canter.  Then had lunch with Judy, and she can make a mean salad!  Then Judy and I both run to the gym for our personal training.  It is about this point that I'm just not feeling great.  I started a new birth control pill a few days ago and I think my system is getting use to it.  So now I'm doing my personal training and I'm sluggish and tired and just want to take a nice nap.  But I did push through and ended up having a decent workout.  TGU's can do that for you.  After that I needed to go get an oil change so I go and do that, they need to replace a tail light but don't have it in stock so I run to the Auto Zone near by and buy the light bulb to bring it back to them so they can replace it.  Whew I mean do you see how this day keeps going and its not done yet.  Then I get home and really want to stick with my new program so I turn on 22 Minute Hard Corp and push play and do Cardio 1 and Core 1.  And that is when I took this photo.  I'm tired my hair is out of control but it's the kind of day where you will sleep good at night.  So here's to having a good nights rest!  

Hard nights rest Until...

Most of the time I sleep like a baby.  I really don't have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep and if something does wake me up its not a problem I tend to fall right back to sleep.  But last night was a different story.

At first I was exhausted so I fell asleep on the couch while the hubby played video games.  I would say my exhaustion was real because he was playing a pretty loud, shooting game and I just kept on sleeping.  Finally some crazy monster work me up. So, I went up to bed.  I fell asleep easy again but then I had the most wonderful dream.  I dreamed about my sweet sweet girl Callie.  Callie was my once in a lifetime dog.  She was beyond special and we had a connection that I can only hope to find again.  She was the type of dog that would anticipate my needs.  It was all about me, Mommy.  I loved her dearly and when she passed of old age I felt the lose very deeply.  I think I'm dreaming about her because we are coming up on the anniversary of her leaving us, March  17th, 2014.

Needless to say when I woke up from this dream I was very upset that the reality was that she is no longer with us.  It lasted for only a moment but you know how it is when you wake up and are still foggy from dreaming a great dream only to find out it wasn't real.  That was me last night.  After that I had quite a restless night.  Woke up multiple times until one of those times it was Zoskia waking me up to tell me she needed to go outside for a nighttime potty.  I let her out, gave her a pat and we went back up to go back to bed and from there on out I slept great again.  So Zoskia, my silly, goofy dog did something last night for me.  She filled my heart up and I was at peace.